


A Visit

by leosaysgrrrr



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 04:35:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17036771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leosaysgrrrr/pseuds/leosaysgrrrr
Summary: A collection of one-shots I wrote featuring my ocs interacting with my friends' ocs.  Archived from Tumblr.





	1. Far Greater Purpose - f. Thalon Lavellan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma Sparrow gets a lecture from Inquisitor Thalon Lavellan (belongs to the wonderful @princeofmorley) about hiding things, scars, and healing.

“Agent Harper, isn’t it?”

The low, soothing voice that ever so calmly broke her focus was unfamiliar, but it and the shadow that fell over her had such a heaviness to them that Emma could mistake them for no other.  She raised the steaming mug she cradled in her hands to her lips and only nodded.  She did not turn to greet their owner.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” the voice continued.  “I am-”

“I know who you are, Inquisitor.”

Now, she turned.  

Inquisitor Lavellan stood far enough behind her that his height would not overwhelm her, his blue eyes offering a kind reassurance and a bit of a sparkle as he chuckled, giving a soft glance to the ground for a moment before returning his attention to her.

“Even so, my name is Thalon.”

Again, Emma responded with only a nod, even as he watched her for a moment longer, waiting for an actual reply.  He would be waiting quite a while; he knew what the Inquisition called her, and he could easily find out what the rest of Thedas called her should he be so inclined.  No reason for her to waste the breath to tell him.

“Would you walk with me?” he finally continued, after far longer than she had expected.  She nodded again, cautiously this time, through a furrowed brow.  Months had passed since she and Lux entered the Inquisition’s service, and, as he had keenly pointed out, she and the Inquisitor had never spoken.  There had never been a need.  Any reports of hers meant for his eyes passed first through Nightingale’s.  What, she wondered, prompted him to seek her out now?

Thalon walked with a straight back and a leisurely pace, one to which Emma’s short legs, accustomed to walking briskly to remain abreast of her tall, gangly partner, took a few minutes to adjust.  He kept his eyes forward, with only an occasional glance in her direction, almost as if to make sure she was still there, and did not speak until they reached the courtyard in the lower bailey of the stronghold.  He took up a position leaning against one of the stone walls, and stared pensively across the courtyard at the area recently designated as the Inquisition’s infirmary.  The soft curves and branches of his  _vallaslin_  twisted and turned around his face, not much older than her own, which in turn stretched and bent them further as he silently eyed the aides and servants rushing in and out of the infirmary to assist the healers and surgeons, simultaneously swelling with pride and sinking under the weight on his shoulders.  Silence was generally welcome, if not preferred, but he had not asked her here to be silent, and Emma’s curiosity grew with each second he did not speak.

“I overheard a  _fascinating_  story about you earlier today.”  

“Oh.”  It came out in a barely articulated sigh, breathed into her tea as she sipped; she hadn’t meant to say anything at all, but Thalon’s eyes were already fixed on her, the slight upward arch of his eyebrows almost teasing her to go on.  “Piper?”

“Yes.”  He offered another quiet smile as he folded his arms in front of his chest, and glanced across the courtyard once more.  “He was rather enthusiastically telling another agent that you were injured on a mission.  Quite badly, in fact.”

A flesh wound to one arm and a few cracked ribs.  She’d had worse, and Lux knew it.

“He exaggerates.”

The corners of Thalon’s mouth turned downward for just a moment, and he tilted his head slightly to one side, as if he’d expected she’d say that.  The way his eyes settled on her once he held his head upright again was not any less ominous.

“He also said you were able to heal this grievous injury yourself.  With magic.”

_Damn it, Lux.  Damn it all._

“I…see.”

“He spoke the truth, then?”  No use continuing to hide it; the nod that confirmed his suspicions was slow and reluctant.  Instead of tensing into a glare, Thalon’s face simply fell.  Emma would have almost preferred he be angry than this sort of knowing disappointment, as if he’d known better than to expect otherwise but did so nonetheless.

“The two of you have been in the Inquisition’s service for months, yet neither of you have ever mentioned that you are a healer, and one skilled enough for such a feat at that.”  

Emma said nothing, and instead lifted her mug to her lips again.  What would she have said?  No excuse she would have given - not that she was particularly talented with excuses, anyway - would have stopped him from staring spears through her before watching his infirmary once more.  

“With your proficiency in combat, I can understand not wanting to be stuck in an infirmary, but times like these leave Thedas in desperate need of healers, and healers in short supply.”  

The way the lines under his eyes almost shivered as he turned back to look at her again said he was telling her something she already knew, or should already know, at least.  Something he shouldn’t  _have_  to tell her.  

“This is precisely the worst time to keep such a skill to yourself, agent.”

No.  This was _exactly_  the time to keep it to herself.

“My proficiency in combat is of greater benefit the Inquisition,” she replied, taking another sip, and avoiding what she knew he wanted to ask.  Thalon’s face finally tensed into a stern glare down his nose, indicating he tired of her avoidance of the subject as much as she tired of being forced to discuss it.

“You should have told us,” he admonished her after a resigned sigh, the friendly tone all but disappearing from his voice, settling instead into a low, coarse timbre reminiscent of a parent trying not to be  _too_  angry with an unruly child.  “It is a far greater purpose, and a far more pressing duty of the Inquisition as a whole, to save lives rather than to take them.”

Emma returned her own heavy sigh.  A greater purpose, perhaps - no, that, at least, was objectively true, but not a purpose meant for her.  

“That is why I did not.”

Thalon arched an eyebrow.  “I’m not sure I follow.”

She finished her tea, and gave the mug a quick wipe with her sleeve.  “Do you have any scars, Inquisitor?”

A moment’s hesitation, then a curt nod.  She knew the answer before he said it.

“I do.”

“Then you know that wounds will heal on their own, given time and proper care, and the process can be painful.”

The  _vallaslin_  relaxed around his eyes, and the freckles around Emma’s mimicked it.

“That is true, yes.  In more ways than one.”

Some elves left the infirmary burdened with full wash basins and wet rags stained with blood.  Emma reached across herself and rested her hand on the opposite arm, just below the shoulder, where she’d held back a steady flow of blood as her flesh knit back together only days before.

“I simply accelerate that process to close wounds and mend broken bones quickly so I may continue fighting.  I am not a true healer, Inquisitor.  I cannot call spirits to aid me as you do.”

He made the face that seemed to be the quintessential response to hearing someone say they cannot do something; part gentle yet enthusiastic reassurance, part shock that she would say such a thing in the first place, and just the slightest bit condescending.  Thankfully, Emma suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.

“Ignoring that spirit healers are not the only ‘true healers’, have you tried?  It isn’t always as intuitive as you might think.  Perhaps you just need to learn how to speak to them.”

She stared back at him for a moment, her face fixed in a half-glaring, half-bewildered expression.

“They will not hear me.”  Predictably, Thalon didn’t seem to fully understand, but Emma sighed with relief when he decided not to press the issue.  The condition of her mind was an entirely different conversation she had no desire to have at the moment.  “I can block the body’s signal to feel pain, but the mending itself requires so much focus that it is impossible for me to do both.  Thus, pain that is usually spread over weeks or months is felt all at once, in the space of a few minutes.  It is…excruciating.”  

As much as she tried not to, she could still see the scaly, grey skin, lined with veins black with corruption, the gaunt cheeks surrounding desiccated lips begging her for relief.  Still heard the screams of agony as her magic tore through him, chasing the corruption with such focus, so sure she could kill it, so absolutely certain that with her help, the Blight would never take him.  She’d never even considered…

“Sometimes lethal.”

Despite her attempts to keep the memories from displaying themselves on her face, the Inquisitor’s brow creased upwards at the center.  Emma looked away before he could speak; sympathy was the last thing she wanted from him.

“Someone close to you?”

Damn it.  Her eyes fell shut as her chin fell softly to her chest.  

_I’m sorry, Papa.  I’m so sorry…_

“Very.”

She didn’t look up, but after a long pause there was a soft rustling as Thalon shifted his position against the wall.  

“This…may be difficult for you to believe, but I do understand.”  Across the courtyard, one of the elven runners tripped, sending both the runner and the supplies he carried crashing to the ground. Thalon watched with his face set in somber, straight lines, the wrinkles around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth accentuated and betraying his own pain, old and long scarred-over.   “The loss of a loved one at your own hand is…far too great a wound to ever be truly healed, neither by magic nor the passage of time.  Sometimes, though…”  

He paused momentarily, his breath almost hitched in his throat as he continued watching across the courtyard, where another elf had emerged from the infirmary, one Emma had seen many times before; a small Dalish elf, white vallaslin standing out in stark contrast to his face, his neck wrapped in an orange scarf and his crimson hair reflecting bits of orange in the low sun.  He held out one hand to the fallen elf, and helped him to his feet before dusting him off and, once they’d gathered all of his supplies, carried some to the infirmary for him.  Thalon watched all of this as though entranced, his eyes heavy-lidded and locked on the other elf, and his mouth forced upward at the corners; he couldn’t have held the firm countenance he’d kept on her moments earlier even if he’d wanted to.  A few moments after the activity at the door ceased, and he seemed to snap back to the present, and continued as if he’d never stopped speaking.

“Sometimes, the forces that take from us are also those that give us our greatest gifts.”  

The red-haired elf walked the runner back outside, glanced in their direction, and sent Thalon a smile that in turn drew one out of him like a man watching the sun rise for the first time; almost involuntary, an innate reaction to such overwhelming beauty.  Emma knew it well, since the same look crept across her face as Lux, bow slung across his back and bound for the training yard nearby, hopped off of the second to last of the stairs in front of them and, noticing their presence there, stretched his face into a wide grin.  Thalon must’ve noticed, and he leaned downward towards her, almost whispering,  

“But, from what I understand, you already know that.”

She did.  The wash of warmth that permeated her already warm core as she watched her friend smile with his entire face, scars and all, and shake hands with at least five people before he finally reached his destination and readied his bow wouldn’t be as familiar and soothing if she didn’t.  There would be no need to suppress the chuckle as he lowered his weapon no sooner than he’d drawn it, to greet someone else and spend the next few minutes talking, forgetting why he was there in the first place.  The same magic that had ended her father’s life had brought Lux back from the very brink of death, and his resulting presence in her life had, in turn, saved her, too.  

It was her turn to snap back to the present now, facilitated by Thalon’s firm, yet kind hand coming to rest on her shoulder.  

“Your friend is proof you’ve not killed everyone you’ve ever healed.  It’s not unreasonable to think that, should you try, perhaps take your time instead of trying to fix everything at once, you may not kill anyone at all.”  

Ten years, she thought, since this magic had killed anyone.  What the Inquisitor suggested was possible; she was far better adjusted to her magic now than she was then, but the thought remained, tugging on tiny bits of her like irritating pinpricks, that she’d achieved that for so long not through overcoming her own insecurities, but by simply refusing to take the chance.  Thalon noticed her discomfort at the suggestion, and she felt a momentary increase in pressure on her shoulder before he straightened his back, and folded his hands together behind it.

“I won’t force you, but consider lending your talents to the surgeons.  There truly is peace in knowing you can save a life rather than end it.”

Thalon also noticed the hesitation in the terse nod she gave in reply, watching behind him and all around him, eyes anywhere but on him, and dropped his tone once more.

“Agent Harper…”

Deliberately, and with no movement anywhere else, her eyes flicked upwards to meet the Inquisitor’s, once again sparkling with a glint of that same kind reassurance.

“Consider it.”

A deeper, more respectful nod this time, laced with a barely noticeable smile, as the Inquisitor took his leave, turning his head back at least once with a bit of a smile of his own.   _No such luck, Inquisitor_ , she thought with a slight twitch at the corners of her mouth, as she let her attention fall once more on the infirmary door.  

She considered it, just for a moment, and deemed a certain scrawny Tevinter elf’s need of a reminder to be aware of his surroundings more pressing at that particular moment.

She would consider it again tomorrow. 


	2. Song and Cinnamon - f. Nindarhmen Lavellan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux, a.k.a. Inquisition agent Piper, has a talk with the ever so lovely @sunshinemage‘s Nindarhmen Lavellan about letting go, fitting in, and making peace.

Lux made it halfway through the second refrain this time before he realized he’d been singing to himself again.  

The elf sat on a stone wall overlooking the well-trampled grass and mud of the courtyard at Skyhold’s front gate, wrapped in a thick cloak, kicking his legs over the side and eagerly awaiting the Inquisitor’s return.  

Well, the Inquisitor’s  _party’s_  return.  

 _One particular member_  of the Inquisitor’s party’s return.  

A certain boastful dwarf who would soon enough learn just how perilous underestimating the amount of tiny Orlesian cinnamon cakes would fit into the cheeks of a scrawny Tevinter elf at once could be.  

The notes crept up through his throat and pressed stubbornly at his teeth as he watched the bustle below.  Lux bit them back for a moment, but his mind left idle would turn quickly to less pleasant things, and soon enough he found himself humming the old, bittersweet melody once more.  Truthfully, the tune itself was serenely beautiful, and he let it float gracefully through his lips with barely a second thought as to how and when to form each note.  Something to be boastful about himself, he supposed.  The dwarf could emit noise, to be certain, but nothing that could be called anything remotely close to singing.  Yet, there remained a touch of unspoken admonishment in the act itself, and the comfort he felt knowing his pitch and time remained impeccable.  Part of him knew the notes were the remnant of a life he should have entirely left behind years ago, and he allowed himself a moment’s breath to emit a strong sigh of relief that this time, no one was around to hear his folly.

Or so he thought.

“Quite the lovely song, friend.”

Lux sat bolt upright, and frantically wrenched his head from side to side before his gaze finally settled on the small elf standing a few feet behind him (and, likely, an entire foot shorter than him) and the owner of the offending voice.

The best way Lux found to describe him was, oddly enough, warm.  His brown face was adorned with the sharp contrast of white Dalish tattoos and an effortlessly kind smile, and the deep red strands of his hair caught the yellows and oranges of the sun just so, giving him a sort of corona of his very own (Lux thought to himself he should write that down so as not to forget it; he had only recently learned what a corona was and was rather pleased with himself for finding an excuse to use it).  Wrapped comfortably in warm shades of fabrics, the man seemed to emanate a kind of ember-like glow, one that was not simply seen, but felt, just from looking at him.  Even his voice, startling as it had been, felt more like an unexpectedly pleasant warm bath than a cold splash to the face.

Lux had seen this elf before, felt this radiant warmth from his presence.  He remembered the soft comfort of that voice explaining to the children of elven refugees when they would find the freshest cookies in the kitchens, or humming his own gentle melodies to himself as he walked the grounds of the stronghold, and he felt his face flush at the realization of who his unfortunate luck had allowed to discover his nagging little secret.

“Seneschal Lavellan!” he yelped, and scrambled to pull his legs over to the other side of the wall, whirling around so quickly he nearly lost his balance.  Once he righted himself, he brushed crumbs off the front of his uniform and scratched at the back of his head, glancing with a timid half-smile across his face between the Seneschal of Elvhen Affairs to the Inquisition and…anywhere else, really.

“Sorry, I didn’t know anyone was listening.”

The other elf’s shoulders rose with a gentle chuckle, and he waved one hand back and forth in front of him in a manner that told Lux exactly what the next words out of his mouth would be.

“And I didn’t mean to startle you.  Please, no need to be so formal. Nindarhmen is my name, and you’re most welcome to use it.”

Lux figured that if he had a silver for each time he’d been told to call someone by their name rather than their title or some other honorific since he’d left Tevinter, he could likely finance the entire Inquisition himself.  Such insistence on familiarity from those in positions of power within the Inquisition was indeed appreciated, but actually carrying it out proved easier said than done.

“And I certainly didn’t mean for you to stop.”

Lux felt his face flushing again.  “Well, I’m probably due for a rest anyway,” he managed after making a series of silly faces as he tried not to beam with pride, and, before he realized what he was doing, gestured with a quick nod for the other elf to join him.  “Piper.”

Nindarhmen’s smile widened.  He took a few steps forward and hoisted himself up onto the wall beside Lux, his feet amusingly no longer able to touch the ground, and swung his legs around to the other side, folding his hands in his lap and kicking his feet into the air.  Lux adopted a quivering grin and, far more carefully this time, turned around himself.  

They sat in silence for a few moments, exchanging sideways glances and awkward smiles every so often.  Conversation, normally an old friend of Lux, inconveniently eluded him, and he grit his teeth hoping it might coerce the right words to come to him.   _Don’t force them, Lucky,_ Varric always said.   _Forcing words is like forcing farts; there’s a chance you’ll get away with it if you let it come naturally, but you force it, and everyone’s gonna know._

Fortunately, thinking of Varric jogged his memory; he untied the pouch of cinnamon cakes from his belt and offered it with an encouraging smile to his new companion.  Nindarhmen pulled the sides of the pouch open with inquisitive fingers, and his already bright golden eyes lit up once he saw what was inside.

“Ooh!  Don’t mind if I do.”  He gleefully popped one into his mouth and handed the pouch back to Lux, happily savoring his prized treat.  “Mmm!  Many thanks.”

Lux flashed a quick smile, more out of relief that he hadn’t hated it than anything, tossed one of his own into the air, and caught it in his wide open mouth, prompting a chipper giggle from his new companion.  He offered the pouch again with a grin.  Unable to contain what must have been a hulking beast of an urge to have another, Nindarhmen hesitantly gave in.

“That ought to be it for me, I think, or you’ll have none left soon enough,” he said, wiping a bit of cinnamon sugar from his face with one finger only to lick it off a moment later.  “One of Leliana’s agents, then, I presume?  I can tell from the nicknames.”

“Mhm,” Lux replied through the remnants of his own second cake.  “We all closed our eyes and drew them out of one of those big hats the Chantry mothers wear.  I was one of the lucky ones; some poor sod is running across Thedas right now signing all his reports as ‘Pissprophet’.”

Laughter followed, the infectious sort that filled an entire person like hot soup, followed by another short silence.  Blessedly, Nindarhmen took the initiative to end this one.

“I’m curious…” he began, “where did you learn that tune you were singing before?  I don’t believe I’m familiar with that one.”

Should’ve seen that one coming.

“Pfft, I should hope not,” Lux replied with a scoff, and stared aimlessly into the courtyard.  “It’s a Tevinter song.”

“Ah, yes, that would be why I can’t seem to recognize it,” Nindarhmen agreed with a nod.  He glanced out into the courtyard, as if trying to determine what, exactly, Lux was looking for, then leaned towards him.  “My Tevene, ah…could use a good polishing, of course, but if you wouldn’t mind teaching me, I would love to learn it myself.”

Lux stifled a groan into a heavy sigh.  He wouldn’t wish knowing that pretty song the way he did, with rapped knuckles picking at lute strings and little tricks to keep his voice from shaking as he sang, on anyone, least of all someone who’d already been so kind in such a short time.

“It’s…it’s a sad song.”

Nindarhmen watched him with a knowing quiet, hopeful that Lux would divulge whatever it was he wasn’t telling him while silently reassuring him he knew better than to force words, as well.  

“Ah, I see.  Indeed, as songs go, great beauty often rises from great sadness.”

“Well, I suppose the song itself isn’t sad, but…it’s sad.  It’s a song I used to sing for my…for my former master.”

“I see.”  The small elf had the look people get when someone else confirms some gruesome or unpleasant bit of information, despite having known it to be true all along.  “I remember now, hearing about you.  To think, once my clan and I very nearly ended up right there alongside you…”  He drifted off for a moment, lost in no doubt unpleasant thought.  “Quite a thing you’ve done, then, gaining your freedom.”  

Pride had made a comfortable home inside him in the years since he and Emma escaped Tevinter, but that was no feat of his, so he found himself again staring towards the gate with no hint of anything to say.  

“If I may ask…why hold on to it?”

Lux turned his attention back to his companion, who returned it with a curious stare, his head cocked slightly to one side.

“To what?”

“The song.  Why sing it if it makes you sad?  No one’s forcing you, or at least I hope not.”

Lux shrugged.  He’d never really thought about it before.  If he were being honest with himself, with all the world’s music available to him now, there really was no reason whatsoever that he should keep singing that particular song.  Yet, when fancy took him, those notes were always the first on his tongue.

“Don’t know.”  A chill breeze rudely shoved its way between the two elves, prompting him to pull the cloak tighter around his shoulders before he continued.  “Tevinter songs are all I know, I suppose.”

“Well, of course it’s never too late to learn new ones.  Make your own, even.  After all, how free are you, truly, if you still sing the songs that represent your old chains?”

That stung, a bit more than Lux would’ve liked, and he grumbled, turning his head away to hide a petulant frown.  He had a point, but that didn’t mean Lux had to like it.  

“I don’t know.  Maybe.”

“Song is such an integral part of our people’s heritage, you know.  If you’d like, I could-”

“I don’t care to be learning any of your Dalish songs, thanks,” Lux interrupted, quite a bit more gruff than was perhaps warranted.  Nindarhmen stared back at him, the middle of his brow twitching upwards ever so slightly, but only breathed a quick, crestfallen “oh.”  Lux, for his part, looked away again and huffed, actually rather proud of himself.  Those two words from the mouth of a Dalish elf, even this Dalish elf, never failed to leave a bitter taste in his mouth.  

_Our people._

He’d heard it a thousand times, and never once had he thought the way they sunk their teeth into that ‘ _our_ ’ was to say ‘ _yours and mine_ ’.  Never once had he been given any reason to believe that the word ‘ _our_ ’ spoken by a Dalish elf was ever meant to include him.

He poked at the patch of moss growing on the stones between his legs for a moment before it dawned on him that the Dalish elf next to him, twining one end of his bright orange scarf around one of his fingers and requiring just a bit too much effort to keep that soft smile on his face, the man he’d just insulted with his crass dismissal despite this being the most pleasant interaction he’d had with a Dalish elf in his life, just so happened to be the only Dalish elf in the entirety of Thedas who called the Inquisitor ‘husband’.

Lux drew in a horrified gasp and shook his hands in front of him in comically panicked denial.

“Wait, no!  I’m sorry, I just…”   

Nindarhmen’s quiet chuckle sent a flush through Lux’s cheeks and out to the ends of his ears, but the smaller elf only raised one hand in front of him, the smile sitting a little less heavy on his face, and shook his head.  He must deal with this sort of thing more often than Lux gave him credit for, he supposed.  

“Oh, no, no, I apologize.”  

Lux bit his lip.  Nindarhmen had done nothing worth an apology, and undue apologies brought him the same sort of shame as undue compliments.  

“I meant to say I could teach you some  _elven_  songs, since I’ve learned some in my time here,” Nindarhmen continued, the cadence of his speech increasing after each syllable.  “After all, I did say  _our_  people, did I not?  Don’t have to be Dalish to be ours, friend.”  

Every bone in his body knew the last thing he meant by that was to patronize, or to condescend, but the dismissive scoff was already halfway out by the time he decided it was probably not the appropriate response.

“Most Dalish I’ve met would disagree.”  

Nindarhmen’s lips pursed to one side, as if he noted a kernel of truth in Lux’s comment and couldn’t quite bring himself to take offense.  He shuffled closer, then turned square to face him, folding one leg on the wall in front of him and knitting his brow in a manner that told Lux he was now being quite serious.

“What…happened, if I may ask?  What is it that has you so bitter towards us?”

It was Lux’s turn, then, to draw in a deep breath, and ready a tale he’d tired of telling before he’d even thought to tell it the first time.  Warmth washed over him as Nindarhmen’s waiting gaze settled on him; it put him an odd sort of at ease, pulled word after word out of him despite them being nowhere to be found only a minute before.

“In Minrathous, being an elf meant being a slave.  That was it, that was all I could ever be.  No point in wanting to be anything else.  When I found out that wasn’t true, that elsewhere in Thedas elves lived as free people, that I could have a house in a human city or live among the trees alongside others of my kind if I wished…that, that freedom was what being an elf truly meant, and I wanted that desperately.  Nearly died trying to get it, too.”  

It all seemed so selfish now, trying to get out as he did.  He did die, and others had died for him with no tiny, sharp-faced southern mages to bring them back.  Were it not for Emma, he’d be dead still, rotting in some mass grave under the city where the magisters hid their secrets everyone already knew.  

“Well…my friend, she saved me, and she took me to those elves who lived among the trees.  She had a teacher who was Dalish before she found me, so she taught me what to say when I met them.  I practiced, incessantly, the entire way there, and when I finally met these paragons of what an elf should be, they took one look at me, called me ‘flat-ear’, and turned me away before I could say a word.  They were the authority on…I don’t know,  _elfiness_ , I suppose, and my particular pointed ears…well,  _ear_ …I wasn’t good enough.  And so it’s been, with just about every Dalish I’ve met since.  Except you, of course.”

Such a distinction was hardly one the Seneschal was pleased to possess, if the sullen expression that came over his face was any indication.

“Oh…that…is, sadly, not the first time I’ve heard such a thing.”  

More silence, longer, and a different uncomfortable than before.  Worse.  

“I wonder, then…are you familiar with the Oath of the Dales?”

“Maybe…” Lux replied, never one to admit he didn’t know something.  Not that he’d ever been any good at hiding that he didn’t.  Nindarhmen was hardly fooled.

“It is an old…affirmation, of sorts.   _We are the Dalish: keepers of the lost lore, walkers of the lonely path.  We are the last elvhen.  Never again shall we submit_.”

An affirmation.  A promise, spoken with a somber stillness he knew all too well.  Lux imagined saying such a thing was meant to be encouraging, to foster hope and determination and stave off despair.  It could very well work, too, if it weren’t for the one little word whose presence needled at him even through the soothing lilt of Nindarhmen’s voice.  The one tiny word that should have championed acceptance and unity, but instead signaled a treacherous disconnect.  The one word in that promise clearly not meant for him.

_We._

“Sounds…very Dalish.”

One corner of Nindarhmen’s mouth turned upwards then, and the patience and compassion in his face gave way only just to an almost cheeky glint in his eyes.

“Ah, but see, you assume the important part of the Oath lies with the assertion that ‘we are the last elvhen’, yes?”  

Lux only raised an eyebrow, also hardly willing to admit to being found out so easily.  

“It is not.  Far from it, in fact.  The most important words from that oath, and the words upon which the Inquisition hopes to build the future of our people, all of us, are the last.  Never again shall we submit.”

Nindarhmen leaned forward as he spoke, gesturing every which way with his hands, barely blinking or stopping to breathe and certainly never breaking eye contact.  Lux’s own heartbeat quickened as he listened, attention held fast whether he wanted it to be or not.  

“These words…they belong to all of us.   _All_  of the elves, all across Thedas, can raise their voices together to proclaim that we will never again be made to believe we are anything but equals amongst everyone else.  And…”

Finally, he stopped, with a slow, controlled inhale, eyes falling gently shut through the corresponding exhale.  Lux held his breath as the other elf’s eyes opened once more, now set aflame with conviction.  His smile faded, and the pitch of his voice dropped sharply as he went on.  

“We must never again believe we are not all equals amongst ourselves.”  Nindarhmen reached out, and Lux kept his breath and his position held fast despite his racing heart until the small hand came to rest on his shoulder.  “Your life in Tevinter was no choice of yours, and it does not make you any less kin to us.  ‘Elf’ is not a title one bestows upon you, nor may anyone dictate whether or not you may claim it for yourself.  It is simply what you are.  I cannot change what has been said and done, but I can see to it that never again shall one of our own be made to feel anything less than welcome among us, and proud of who they are.”  

Frustratingly, making peace with the past was never an easy task.  Lux had painstakingly done so with most of his former life; this remained the only thing he’d been unable to overcome, either on his own or with Emma’s help.  Truthfully, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.  Once, he would have told himself this bitterness against the elves who rejected him kept him warm, but it didn’t.  It was more akin to his flame elixirs, bolstering and protecting him for a while, but leaving him cold and on his own again when it inevitably fizzled out.   _This_ , this show of friendship and compassion on a stone wall in a castle stuck high in the mountains by a Dalish elf who loved songs and cinnamon cakes as much as he did… _this_ was the sort of warm that was also safe.  The sort of warm that carried with it a promise that he would never be cold again.  True, this was one man, and there were many others who would rekindle the bitter flames before they’d even drawn a breath to speak, but maybe…maybe one man truly was all it took.

“Still sounds like a tall order to me.”

“Perhaps.  Never let it be said I do not have my work cut out for me.”  He cocked his head to one side again, that cheeky spark returning in his eyes.  “But, I suppose making a certain Tevinter elf feel welcome here could be a good enough place to start.”  

“I suppose it could.”

They exchanged an understanding series of smiles and nods before a series of calls between gate guards and a wrenching, metallic clamor arose in the direction of the lift up from the valley and signaled Inquisitor Lavellan’s - and Varric’s - return.  Nindarhmen breathed a sigh of relief and left a final soft pat on Lux’s shoulder before swinging himself around to the other side of the wall and gingerly hopping back to the ground.  

“That’ll be the Inquisitor, then.  I should be returning to my duties, before I forget myself and try to relieve you of more of those delightful confections,” he said with a snicker.  “I hope we’ll be seeing more of each other again soon.”

Lux grinned and nodded enthusiastically.  Eagerly, even, which felt…a little strange.  A good strange, though.  He watched that sunny little elf leave over his shoulder with a calm sense of fullness, and the knowledge that he took a tremendous weight from his mind with him.  Perhaps, then, everything would be all right after all.

Nindarhmen stopped only a couple paces out, turned, and walked back, as if he’d forgotten something.  Probably decided he wanted another cinnamon cake after all, and Lux readied the pouch and moved his feet over the wall and to the ground, only too happy to oblige.  He had more than enough left to win a few royals from Varric, anyway.  Nindarhmen’s face, however, was far too solemn to be asking for sweets.

“I am truly sorry for what my people have done to you,” he said.  “I do care, Piper.  We do care.”

Stranger still, to think that this time, he didn’t think for a second that Nindarhmen’s words were anything less than sincere.  The words to tell him what that meant eluded him, however, but a simple nod would suffice in this case.  They both knew better than to force it.  

Nindarhmen made it only a few steps away again before Lux realized he’d left one critical aspect of their conversation unresolved.

“Seneschal Lavel-…Nindarhmen?”

The Seneschal turned once more, and folded his hands behind his back.

“It would help, I think…if I learned some of our songs,” Lux said.  “If you’re willing to teach me, that is.”

Nindarhmen grew a wide smile.

“It would be my honor.”


	3. Boiling Over - f. Spiridon Lavellan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "FLESHWERKS:  
> You've got so many compelling characters, I wanted to ask you about how one of them would deal with mine. So Spiridon is his usual silent judgement self, but he's very unhappy at Eren for dismissing Sera AND making Briala the puppet master, someone he considered a legit friend. He doesn't confront Eren but he can tell that the big boy is seething. What happens next?"

The Inquisitor often regretted having insisted the big white bastard remain at Skyhold, and today was no different.

He didn’t hate Spiridon, he supposed.  Not like he should have.  True, ‘big white bastard’ was one of the kinder ways he’d been known to refer to his former clanmate, but then Eren himself had likely been called far worse.  He certainly made no great effort towards hospitality now.  The Inquisition had need of Spiridon’s blade, nothing more.  As such, the hunters on the shadow path stalking outside Skyhold’s walls must remain unsated, and the cries of those back home distraught over tales of the  _harellan_ ’s presence at the Inquisitor’s back must continue to fall on deaf ears.  

At least for now.  

Eren had seen judgment in the eyes of those he passed for long enough that he expected nothing else, exacerbated as of late by the recent troubles at Halamshiral.  Presently, it came from the stalk of white and beige crowding his peripheral vision, and with a particular sharpness.  He’d felt that needling pinch for weeks now; Red Jenny’s overdue departure from Skyhold lifted some measure of frustration from Eren’s mind, but Spiridon clearly did not appreciate being short the distraction in his down time.  Not a word had passed between them since, but the big bastard’s stares were sharp enough to speak for him.

Since the Inquisitor’s return from the Winter Palace, however, that little pinch had grown sharper, and deeper, no longer a needle so much as a blade.  It would be only a matter of time before it broke the skin, and drew blood.  

Spiridon watched him approach from his perch against one of the fortress walls as if he’d been anticipating it.  Dreading it, perhaps, Eren would’ve liked to think.  The air hung thick between them with a distinct sense of hunger, a long-standing craving on either side for the opportunity to have only their own halves of this conversation.  They would each pick its carcass clean, without concern as to whether the other found the same satisfaction.  Likely, they would both wholly intend to ensure their opponent did not.

Never one to give up an advantage, Eren would have the first bite.

“Is there a reason you think standing there gawking like that is the best use of your time?”

He received only a huff and a corresponding stiff, irreverent jerk of his subordinate’s upper body as a reply.   _Fine_ , he thought, and drew a few steps closer.

“I expect everyone here to do their jobs, and it is hardly your job to support that wall with your back, is it?”  

Still no reply.  What else would he expect, really?  ‘Yes, Inquisitor, right away’?  A blatant insistence that he  _fuck off_ , perhaps, but acquiescence without some sort of pig-headed resistance?  Certainly not, not from him.  Nevertheless, Eren tired of the distraction of being followed this way and that by seething eyes and piqued breath, and decided it would simply not do to leave without ensuring its removal.   

“I suggest you find something  _useful_  to do.”

Despite the soft shuffling of cloth and boot against stone as he turned to leave, it would be far too much to hope for that this constituted Spiridon readying to do as he’d been told.

“And if I don’t?”

Eren turned, knowing full well what he would see behind him.  Spiridon had indeed shoved off the wall and risen to his full height, a good head taller than he was, if not more.  He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, a sneer gliding down the wide bridge of his nose, daring the Inquisitor to answer.

Hardly willing to be such an easy meal, Eren moved towards him once more.  

“What did you say?”

“And if I don’t?” Spiridon repeated, the pitch of his voice dropping just enough to feel a bit patronizing.  “What then, hm?  Gonna throw me out, too?”

 _If it comes to that, without hesitation._  

Certainly not in the mood for another of the ambassador’s lectures on ‘good form’, ‘tact’, and ‘civility’, Eren begrudgingly straightened his posture and bit back the words until he could muster some that were a bit more…diplomatic.  He’d wasted enough of his time turning back in the first place.

“Is that what you want?”

Any attempt at good form, tact, or civility in Eren’s voice came through far less than enthusiastic in the first place, and the creases forming in his brow didn’t help.  The jagged edge of Spiridon’s upper lip rose, just enough of a smirk that Eren found himself fighting his own involuntarily rising into a sneer in return.  

“We’ll see.”  Spiridon leaned forward a little, and raised his eyebrows.  “So much for ‘need all the help we can get’, huh?”

Predictable.  The loudest mouths often sat below eyes that hadn’t seen, and Spiridon had been far from Verchiel when -

_No._

“I am not discussing this with you,” Eren growled.  “It had to be done.”

“Bullshit it did.”  

His reply came almost the moment Eren’s mouth closed, as if he’d heard those words enough times he would’ve heard them whether they’d been said or not.  “You really think that justifies anything?”

_No._

“I do not have to justify anything to you, understand?  Nor do I owe you any explanation.”

Perhaps as if to demonstrate the weight behind his words, Eren’s brow sank deeper into the hard stare he leveled at his clanmate - no, his  _former_  clanmate, and remained so until the crunch of the ground under the sharp turn of his heels communicated just how finished the Inquisitor was with this conversation.

Or so he thought.

“Yeah, see, I think you do.”  

Spiridon moved towards him in leisurely, yet deliberate strides, stepping forward to lay charges against his leader with the smug confidence - the  _utter arrogance_  - that this time, he could make them stick.  Once he’d closed the distance between himself and Eren to a mere step or two, he released one hand from behind his back, and pointed a long, bony finger towards his own face.

“You know what this means.  You know exactly how and why I got these, and still you actually asked me to stay.”

The marks of the _harellan_ , a traitor to the clan, to be shunned and forgotten if not killed on sight, split his face on either side like cracks through stone.  He still remembered the morning after it happened: the commotion among the hunters, the hushed whispers throughout the camp, the blood staining the ground, and the faces of those responsible - the ones who survived, anyway.  By the time Eren was made aware of what happened, Spiridon himself had already gone, and his attackers relayed the news with a juvenile giddiness behind their outward solemnity that turned his stomach even now.  As though he should be proud of them, or perhaps even grateful.  Those men searched the face of their warleader for vindication in what they’d done, and Eren had left them wanting.  

Despite having every reason to dismiss Spiridon’s departure with a gruff “good riddance”, perhaps that lack of an opportunity to do so then was what prompted Eren’s often regrettable decision to ask him to stay when he and the Inquisition crossed paths years later.  That couldn’t be his explanation now, though.  Nor could he express the regret he felt rather keenly in moments such as this, like the itch that lingers after wandering through stinging nettles.  Briefly, the thought crossed his mind that that sting, albeit irritating and entirely unwelcome, felt familiar, and a familiar sting was just the slightest bit better than the dull pulsing pain in his hand, and the general prickle in the air about Skyhold that kept the soft hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end.

No.  Keeping a seasoned elite warrior on hand stood to reason regardless, and he’d not give Spiridon the satisfaction of feeling that sort of wanted.  He’d not be admitting he’d made a mistake, either.  

“Yes.  It was to the Inquisition’s benefit.”

Spiridon’s head cocked to the side ever so slightly.  “Wasn’t she?”

Ah, yes.   _She_.  The question righted his attention back to the matter at hand, and the clench in his fists could relax a bit knowing it would require far less contemplation to answer.

“No.”

The space between them and the Inquisitor’s remaining patience pulled taut in the silence that followed, and, having determined he’d offered Spiridon more than enough time to say whatever he was going to say, Eren turned about and headed back towards the keep at a fairly brisk pace.  Spiridon could rot with his frustrations by that wall for the rest of eternity for all he cared.  

Behind him, air rushed from Spiridon’s nose not unlike that of those big Ander horses he kept.  “What was it, then?  Couldn’t take your beloved Dalish being knocked down a peg, or you just don’t like being questioned now that you’re in charge,  _your Worship_?”

A calculated strike, one Eren should have been expecting.  A question that should never merit an answer, flanked by spouts of inane horse shit he knew nothing about.  A jab at his back he should have been able to shrug off and keep walking.  Leave the bastard to stew.  Nevertheless, his jaw and fists clenched, his shoulders rose, and his feet planted the moment he heard that  _ridiculous_ name.  A moment more, just to be certain, and Eren stormed back towards the smug bastard, fully intent on returning the favor.  The ambassador could keep her lectures; with those words, Spiridon’s entitlement to any sort of tact or civility was forfeit.  

“Because she is foolish, and short-sighted,” he growled, forceful hands nearly throwing the words from his lips.  “Because her games needlessly cost people their lives, and because she ignored my order to stand down  _twice_ , which cost the Inquisition potential resources that could have saved those lives lost to her stupidity in the first place.”  

Each syllable stoked the embers rising in his core, providing all the fuel he needed to bite, to maul, to tear away flesh until he left nothing in his wake but bone and blood.  He would eat first, and he would eat well.      

“Letting her leave was an act of mercy.  She should be in a cell for what she did.”

Spiridon, true to form, weathered the onslaught with barely a twitch of his split lip.  Quietly biding his time, awaiting his turn to feast.  Even his eerie stillness couldn’t hide that the big bastard was practically salivating.

“Shouldn’t I?” he began, leaning forward enough that Eren needed to crane his neck upwards to maintain eye contact, with a coy raise of his eyebrows.  When only the mossy green vallaslin around Eren’s eyes tensed inward in response, Spiridon raised himself to full height once again, jutting his sharp chin forward and staring such daggers down his nose that told Eren exactly what he would say next before he even drew the breath to say it.

“Shouldn’t  _you_?”  

Like a wolf notices the slightest of limps in its prey, so too did Spiridon notice the thick gasp stuck in Eren’s throat, the result of a stalemate between the parts of him that wanted to lash out at such insolence and those that wondered if perhaps there wasn’t something to it.  And, as wolves are wont to do once they’ve noticed such vulnerabilities, Spiridon stalked around him in a slow circle, forcing Eren’s attention tightly around his every move, and, coincidentally, his every word.

“Do you honestly think any of that foolish, short-sighted shit you pulled at Halamshiral will actually help anybody?  You’ve cost every one of those elves in Orlais their lives for all anyone knows, but yes, you’ve shown such mercy, haven’t you?”

His teeth fell true, and struck deep.  Spiridon’s words echoed those in his own mind, the ones that hounded his sleep and plagued his dreams since Halamshiral.  

_You’ve cost every one of them their lives._

Leaving the decision of who would rule Orlais to the Inquisitor put him in a position he would have relished if any option had been the least bit appealing, but what could he honestly have done differently?  Leave Orlais in the hands of an empress who would show elves a friendly face only to have them murdered and burn their homes to the ground when it suited her?  Gaspard at least presented his mind regarding the people with a bare face; easily recognized, easily anticipated, and, with Briala’s oversight, easily leashed.  Yet, the doubt never quite left the back of his mind, and he saw it written over and over again in Spiridon’s self-righteous scowl as he circled, steady footfalls mimicking the heartbeat pulsing ever louder in his ears:  _for how long_?

A decision without favorable options that should never have been his in the first place, indeed, but what was done was done.  If the emperor would cross the Inquisitor’s blade one day, he was more than welcome to the consequences.  

As was Spiridon, should he choose to continue this challenge further.

Another few steps, and Spiridon drew to a sudden halt directly in front of him, moving in closer with his chin dropped, ready to deliver his killing blow with a glare instinctively mirrored inches away on Eren’s own face.  

“That piece of shit Sera killed wouldn’t have even thought twice about killing you where you stood had you been anyone else but the great, benevolent Inquisitor, and neither would the one you just handed an entire fucking empire.”  

With that, the big bastard stepped backwards, the way an artist might in order to properly admire their handiwork.  He searched for cracks in the Inquisitor’s face now just as the hunters who split his had searched for praise in the warleader’s years prior.  He could allow a slight tremble to contain the pressure, perhaps, but he would not show cracks.  He  _must_  not show cracks.  Just as before, eyes would search, and Eren would leave them wanting.  Spiridon had fed quite enough.

“And when did I ever claim greatness, hm?  Or benevolence?” he snapped, tightly balled fists barely heeding his will that they remain at his sides as his teeth ground against the words. “It is not my duty as Inquisitor to be kind and good.  I am not a diplomat, and I am not a politician.  My sole purpose here is to end the threat Corypheus poses to the entirety of Thedas, and I will not compromise that to help  _you_  sleep easier at night.”

Chill wind mixed with Eren’s hot breath as he sent it steaming into Spiridon’s face, alongside a stiff finger granted a momentary reprieve to ensure he listened.

“Do not for one instant think I am unaware of what my duty will cost.”  

Spiridon’s lip curled into his reply without missing a beat.  “What it’ll cost you, or what it’ll cost everyone else?  Or does anyone but you even-”

 _No_.

“It doesn’t matter!” he barked, cutting the air and Spiridon’s retort with a bladed hand, and forcing the big bastard to step back lest he cut more than that.   _Good._  “War has always,  _always_  carried a price for those who aren’t fighting it, as you are well aware, regardless of how I do or do not value their existence!”  

Flecks of spittle found their way onto Spiridon’s cheeks as Eren pressed forward without concern for maintaining a demeanor fitting his station.  The time for such things had passed, and Spiridon would heed carefully considered words no more than would an unbroken horse.  

“But make no mistake, the lives we may lose will be minuscule compared to the countless lives that  _will_  be lost if we fail.  If a few must suffer so that many will not, then  _so be it._ ”

The pulses in his marked hand strengthened, and Eren hid the sickly green light with a rub at his neck as he turned away to collect himself.  A gesture made with the naïve assumption Spiridon would leave him to it, rather than be right at his back when he turned to face him again.

“And when a day comes that you need something from those you let suffer?  How willing do you think they’d be to lift the suffering of the man who watched theirs and said to himself, ‘I can live with that’?  If you even manage to leave any of them alive?”

“Have you heard nothing I’ve said?!” Eren roared.  “I do none of this for glory, or for favor; I do this because I  _must_!  The same reason I’ve trained and protected a clan that sneered behind my back and called me unworthy.  The same reason I see to it those who will not abandon the shadow path do not find  _you_  in your sleep.”  It came as less of a speech and more of a snarl, accompanied once more by an accusatory finger.  “Because  _that_  is my duty, whether I want it or not.  Because _this_ ,” he thrust his hand forward, fingers splayed, the searing energy within thrumming so strongly now he could swear Spiridon may actually be able to see his skin move, “means I am the only one who can.”

They stood in silence for a moment as the heaving in Eren’s chest and the throbbing in his hand slowed.  In the brief absence of Spiridon’s voice, Eren found his own words hanging in his head, and himself alone with a reality he had wrestled even before Nightingale handed him that infernal dragon sword the day they arrived at Skyhold.

 _I am the only one who can._   

And the one who must see it done, no matter the cost, be it to himself or to anyone else, because the cost of doing nothing was more than he was willing to bear.  Even if the mark which designated him as such would one day be his undoing.  

He cradled and stretched his marked hand, his gaze pulled towards the pulsating light as his heart and breath fell into steady rhythm, and the stinging burn within began to subside.  It very well  _may_  be his undoing.   

And he would fulfill his duty anyway.

“The price is high enough without my own allies adding to it,” he said softly, as much to himself as to Spiridon.  “I will not apologize for doing my duty, and I will  _not_ suffer such insubordination.”  

He raised his eyes, but left his head where it was, a fiery glare falling on the big bastard from beneath a furrowed brow.  His next words were for Spiridon, and Spiridon alone.

“From anyone.”

“Yes, we all know how important you are,” Spiridon said through a condescending sneer, “but you still need people.  If you’re going to get people to risk their lives for you and your precious duty, you better give them a good fucking reason.”  His glare tightened once more, eyes becoming mere slits of darkness in the pale of his face.  

“And ‘ _because I have to_ ’ isn’t good enough.”

Of course not.  Not for him.  It hadn’t been a good enough reason to take  _vallaslin_ , or to cease any of his small rebellions that eventually earned him those wolf marks in the first place.  Why should he expect that it would be good enough reason now, with so much more at stake than some scars on his face?

“You are not my prisoner, Spiridon.  You were  _asked_  to stay, remember?”

 _Asked,_  not told, a luxury Eren had not been granted.  Not really.  One which, he thought through a sinking knot in his stomach as he clenched his fist once again around the pulsing green palm, Spiridon may very well recognize, and take advantage of far sooner than later.  From the purse at one corner of his mouth, he knew what Eren meant to say, and he was considering it.  Once again, the big white bastard would sow doubt and dissent, then leave him to the task of reaping it.  Quite a luxury, indeed.

“Think of a better reason,  _Inquisitor_ ,” Spiridon said in a low tone that could almost be described as somber, as if to emphasize some sort of finality, “before there’s no one left who cares to hear it.”

He left the Inquisitor there without care as to whether he had anything else to say, trodding off to…who knew.  To drink, perhaps.  Perhaps that would be the last Eren would see of him; he’d walk past the threshold of the Inquisition’s fortress and right into the shadow hunters’ waiting jaws, never to scowl and crowd anyone’s peripheral vision again.  For now, Eren could no longer be bothered to care, and retreated from the courtyard himself.  

A full pipe and several hours left the Inquisitor with a calmer head, but still in no state for sleep.  His mind drifted with the tendrils of smoke, first to the training yard, likely filled by the little black-eyed agent who never seemed to sleep, then to the fields and wooded clearings that served the same purpose for Lavellan.  Often, it would be him awake in the small hours of the night, swinging his scavenged human greatsword at nothing in particular - imagined enemies, perhaps - practicing forms and drills until he was chased back to bed or the sun rose, whichever came first.  Other times, the training grounds would serve as an arena of sorts, the place he put his training to use and demonstrated to his fellow warriors why he, of all of them, deserved the mantle of warleader.  A place to prove what words alone could not.  

Perhaps his restraint in the courtyard was…unwarranted.  Perhaps settling their differences the way they had in their youth would do them both some good.  And he was far from above dragging the big bastard out of his cot to knock his teeth down his throat for a while.

Having found all the motivation he needed; he dressed lightly, tied his hair back, and collected two pole arms from the armory.  Spiridon’s quarters lie just beyond the tavern - if he wasn’t in one, he’d be in the other, and Eren would send no messenger to rouse him from either.  The tavern was empty by the time he arrived, so he completed the short walk to the glorified broom closet where Spiridon slept and delivered a sharp rap on the wooden door with the end of a polearm.  Figuring him for a heavy sleeper, he tried again, and once more before simply turning the knob and rather unceremoniously letting himself in.

He’d spent the entire walk over rehearsing what he would say at this very moment and settled on something simple, yet effective -  _Training yard.  Now._  The light seeped into the room from behind him, and as the pile on top of the cot finally coalesced into view, the breath he drew to say it hitched in his throat.

 _Shit._   


End file.
